We found nearly three dozen excellent free poetry and prose contests with deadlines between August 15-September 30. In this issue, we bring you Julian Peters' illustration of "The Trees" by Philip Larkin. Annie Mydla explores what transforms a loose portfolio of stories, essays, poems, or artwork into a cohesive, compelling book.

If a big old writer's block is in your path, trying walking through it, says subscriber Christine Copeland in this month's tip. If you have a tip, recommendation, or warning, please email it to info@winningwriters.com.

WERGLE FLOMP HUMOR POETRY CONTEST WINNERS
Congratulations to Jeff Carter, winner of our 2025 Wergle Flomp Humor Poetry Contest. "There Was an Old Woman" earned him $2,000 and a two-year gift certificate from Duotrope. We paired Mr. Carter's poem with original art by Marta Zubieta. Fans of Marta's art will recall her illustration for our 2020 Wergle winner later graced the cover of the 2022 Best of the Net anthology.

We awarded runner-up Julia Lichtblau $500 for "The Dictionary of Occupational Titles, 1939 (Revised)". AJ Layague won Third Prize of $250 for "The Three Muscatels Go to the Races". Honorable mentions and $100 went to Stephen Dotson Dale, Sophie Develyn, Eddie Elizabeth, Madi Himelfarb, Kim Keough, Susan Kinsolving, Molly Lanzarotta, Jon D. Lee, Phil Maund, Mandy Shunnarah, Lynn Tan, and Carol Whitney Ward. We couldn't choose just 10 Honorable Mentions so we awarded 12.

5,060 contestants entered from around the world. See our press release and read all the winning entries with comments from final judge Jendi Reiter.

Special thanks to assistant judge Lauren Singer, who read all 5,000+ poems. Annie Mydla and her team helped with contest administration and employed AI to make an illustration for the poem by AJ Layague. Winning Writers is committed to only using services that compensate contributors for their roles in the generative AI process.

Our 2026 contest is now open for entries. We will award top prizes of $2,000, $500, and $250. Our co-sponsor Duotrope will give the winner a two-year gift certificate (a $100 value) to go with their $2,000 prize. As always, this contest has no fee.

Upcoming Deadline
TOM HOWARD/MARGARET REID POETRY CONTEST
23rd year. We will award $3,500 for a poem in any style or genre and $3,500 for a poem that rhymes or has a traditional style. Ten Honorable Mentions will receive $500 each (any style). The top 12 entries will be published online. The top two winners will also receive two-year gift certificates from our co-sponsor, Duotrope (a $100 value). Length limit: 250 lines per poem. Entry fee: $25 for a submission of 1-3 poems. Multiple submissions welcome. Final judge: Michal 'MJ' Jones, assisted by Briana Grogan and Dare Williams. Deadline: October 1.
Submit online here.

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Congratulations to Monica Sharp, Joseph Stanton, Chen Du (featured poem: "A Man Is Leaving the North"), Mandy Shunnarah, Gary Beck, Noah Berlatsky, Francine Witte, CM Pickard, Louisa Prince, Jennifer Tubbs, Duane L. Herrmann, Cheryl J. Fish, Samantha Terrell, Angela Paolantonio, Maranda Jacob, and Gail Thomas.

Learn about our subscribers' achievements and see links to samples of their work.

Have news? Please email it to jendi@winningwriters.com.

Do you use TikTok or Instagram? Send your news to the @winningwriters account so we can share it!

With your best poem, you could win the $1,000 top prize in the Vivian Shipley contest hosted by the Connecticut Poetry Society (CPS).

Vivian Shipley is Distinguished Professor Emeritus at Connecticut State University. She received the Library of Congress’s Connecticut Lifetime Achievement Award for Service to the Literary Community, and twice received the Connecticut Book Award for poetry. The most recent of her 12 poetry books, Archaeology of Days, was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.

A second prize of $100, and a third prize of $50 will also be awarded. Winning poems will be published in Connecticut River Review and winners will receive membership in the CPS.

Please submit 1-3 original poems in a single file, without contact information. Only electronic submissions through Submittable will be accepted. There is a $15 reading fee per entry.

Email contests.ctpoetry@gmail.com with questions.

"The most successful collections we see are tightly edited around their strengths. For example, I remember being thrilled by a short story collection with five strong literary fiction stories exploring temporary connections between strangers. If that had been the entire collection, it would have sailed through to the next round of judging. In this case, though, those stories were mixed in with less-well-executed domestic drama, sci-fi, and political pieces that didn't overlap with the core content. A little more editing would have made all the difference."

Read on.

Fiction • Nonfiction • Essays • Screenplays • Plays

Sarah Kornfeld provides encouraging guidance to refine structure, voice, and flow for writers seeking agents, awards, and global publication. Having expertise with international, diverse, and intersectional writers, she is currently taking on clients for the fall and winter.

Rates: From $0.04/word or $60/hour. Screenplay and play edits from $150 flat.

Sarah is an international author (What Stella Sees; The True), Los Angeles Review of Books contributor, Sarah Lawrence graduate, and Royal Court Theatre-trained. She is Senior Strategist for Judson Memorial Church/Black Esthetics Residencies and Co-Producer of Aguda Returns. She is a visiting professor of Cultural Curation, University of San Francisco. Sarah divides her time between New York and London, developing both her writing and her work at the intersection of art and technology.

Contact Sarah at sarahkornfeld.org to discuss your project.

Clients say:

"Working with Sarah is a gift no one should pass up. Her passion, expertise, and intelligence animate every project she touches."
—A.M. Hoch, Interdisciplinary Artist, Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grantee

"Sarah Kornfeld is an original. She has the passion of an activist, the business savvy of a PR specialist, and the soul of a poet. If she cares about it, it's worth caring about. Pay attention to her. You'll be glad you did."
—Stephen Scott-Bottoms, Writer, Theater-Maker, Professor of Contemporary Theater, University of Manchester

"Sarah is a tremendous professional. Her artistic intelligence and command of storytelling make her a rare and invaluable partner."
—Fenot Tekle, VP Global Communications, Canva

"With her help, I was admitted into all of the graduate schools I applied for because I had a strategy for my story and my essays spoke for themselves.”
—Blessed Ohadoma, MA Graduate Student

Ploughshares welcomes unsolicited submissions of fiction, poetry, and nonfiction during our regular reading period, open now through January 15, 2026. To submit to the journal, including the Fall Longform Issue, please review our guidelines.

Ploughshares has published quality literature since 1971. Our award-winning literary journal is published four times a year: blended poetry and prose issues in the Winter and Spring, a prose issue in the Summer, and a special longform issue in the Fall. Subscribe to Ploughshares and submit online for free. (Non-subscribers pay a $3.75 service fee.)

Christine Copeland is a painter, illustrator, and children's book author. Her work includes the Seasons in the Forest picture-book series of nature guides for young readers. Christine writes,

A friend asked me, "How do you come up with the text in your children's books?"
My answer, "It comes to me when I walk in the woods. Sometimes a few pages come all at once, and sometimes just a sentence that I have to jot down or I'll forget it. Sometimes I edit and sometimes I don't."
My friend answered, "That's amazing! That works for me, too!" She's a novelist, I'm a children's book author/illustrator.
"When I'm stuck," she continued, "I take a walk in the woods and fields around my house and think about other things. I come back to my writing and I'm not so stuck."
Nature has a special way of opening our minds.

Have a tip, recommendation, or warning? Please email it to us at info@winningwriters.com.

Sponsored by Winning Writers

TOM HOWARD PRIZE: $3,500 for a poem in any style or genre

MARGARET REID PRIZE: $3,500 for a poem that rhymes
or has a traditional style

The top two winners will also receive two-year gift certificates from our co-sponsor, Duotrope (a $100 value)

Honorable Mentions: 10 awards of $500 each (any style)

Submit published or unpublished work. Top 12 entries published online.

Judged by Michal 'MJ' Jones, assisted by Briana Grogan and Dare Williams.

Recommended by Reedsy as one of The Best Writing Contests of 2025.

Submit 1-3 poems for one $25 entry fee.

Enter via Submittable by October 1

Some contests are best suited to writers at the early stages of their careers. Others are better for writers with numerous prizes and publications to their credit. Here is this month's selection of Spotlight Contests for your consideration:

Emerging Writers
Sunday Times Charlotte Aitken Young Writer of the Year Award. The Society of Authors will award up to 10,000 pounds for a published or self-published book of poetry, fiction, or creative nonfiction (all genres compete together) by an author aged 18-35 as of December 31 of the deadline year. Books must have been first published in the UK and/or the Republic of Ireland, in the English language, between November 1 of the preceding year and October 31 of the deadline year. Authors must be UK or Irish citizens, or residents for the three years preceding the award. Send 8 physical books and one electronic copy. Must be received by September 8.

Intermediate Writers
Young Lions Fiction Award. The New York Public Library will award $10,000 for the best published book of fiction (novel, short story collection, or graphic novel) by a US author age 35 or under. Books must have been published or scheduled for publication during the current calendar year. Must be submitted by publisher. See website for nomination form. Send completed form, PDF of galley or final book manuscript, author's bio, and any available reviews of the work by using sponsor's online portal. Then send 12 hard copies of the nominated book by post with tracking. Must be received by September 5.

Advanced Writers
Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing. The Writers' Trust of Canada will award C$25,000 for literary nonfiction books about Canadian politics by Canadian citizens or permanent residents and first published in Canada during the deadline year. Deadline varies depending on when the book was published: Books published between January 1, 2025 and August 31, 2025 must be received by September 10; those published between September 1, 2025 and October 31, 2025 must be received by November 5; and those published between November 1, 2025 and December 31, 2025 must be received by January 7, 2026. Publishers should complete online entry form and upload author and book cover images as well as a PDF copy of each submitted title. Send 5 copies of the book.

See more Spotlight Contests for emerging, intermediate, and advanced writers within The Best Free Literary Contests database.

Winning Writers finds open submission calls and free contests in a variety of sources, including Erika Dreifus' Practicing Writer newsletter, FundsforWriters, Erica Verrillo's blog, Authors Publish, Lit Mag News Roundup, Poets & Writers, The Writer, Duotrope, and literary journals' own newsletters and announcements.

• Philadelphia Stories
(poetry, fiction, essays by authors from PA, DE, or NJ - September 1)

• Reckoning
(creative writing about environmental justice, on theme of "Communication" - September 22)

• The Citron Review
(flash fiction and micro prose - December 6, opens on August 31)

This month, editor Jendi Reiter highlights poems that have won prizes recently, either individually or as part of a collection. See our selections from 20 years of past issues.

THE LAND OF MULBERRIES
by Zuhra Malik
Winner of the 2024 Banyan Review Poetry Prize
Entries must be received by August 31
The Banyan Review is an international online journal promoting poetry, art, and the natural world. This prize gives $1,000 and publication. Malik's winning prose-poem is a wistful fairy tale about an unnamed village that is poor in everything but fruit, love, and imagination.

NEITHER/NOR
by Alleliah Nuguid
Winner of the 2023 Dynamo Verlag Book Contest
Entries must be received by August 31
This biennial award (odd-numbered years only) gives $1,000 and publication for a book-length manuscript of prose, poetry, or hybrid work. All genres compete together. Nuguid's poetry collection A Human Moon was the most recent winner. In this poetic fable, a bat refuses to fight in the war between birds and beasts, only to find that neither side accepts them as a hybrid creature in a binary world.

FIGURE EIGHT
by Daniel Moysaenko
Winner of the 2025 Academy of American Poets First Book Award
Entries must be received by September 1
This prestigious award for a manuscript by authors with no published full-length books gives $5,000 and publication by Graywolf Press. Moysaenko's Overtakelessness was the most recent winner. In this poem's brief but harrowing list of wartime sights, one feels terror long before it is explicitly mentioned, and the reader is left to wonder whether the child's dance is a sign of hope or lunacy.

DARK TOURISM
by Amanda Hodes
Winner of the 2024 Philip Levine Prize for Poetry
Entries must be received by September 30
California State University Fresno offers this open poetry manuscript contest with a prize of $2,000 and publication by Black Lawrence Press. Hodes' book Into the Into of Earth Itself was the most recent winner. In this elegiac poem, named for the practice of visiting disaster sites as travel attractions, the focus is Centralia, PA, where underground fires from abandoned mines are still burning.
 

Julian Peters illustrates "The Trees" by Philip Larkin. This work first appeared in Plough Quarterly in 2020.

Jendi or Jend-AI?
AI says the hallmarks of a Jendi Reiter poem are "persona and surreal imagery", "tone mingles wit and solemnity", and "form shimmers: short stanzas, evocative word images, and metaphorical layering."

What do you think, readers? Can you tell which one is the AI poem, and which is the real Slim Shady? To make the comparison fairer, I've chosen a B-list poem from my unpublished files, one that I decided didn't quite land well enough to keep sending out on submission. [read more]

Jendi Reiter is the editor of Winning Writers. Visit their website.